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Comment by gab007 | Hacker News Reader

"Google does not care about their users". Well.. I am not sure about that, but there is always the option of not using Google products, or using as few as possible Google products.

- I've closed my G Suite legacy free edition (as opposed to transitioning to paid)

- I've moved away and stopped using Gmail, Drive, Photos and Keep

I am still using maps & youtube - these are a bit tricky to replace.

No hard-feelings, Google is no longer the company/innovator it used to be (remember back on 2005 got an invitation for gmail, and I was over the moon).

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Obviously it's not a big deal if you're already intentionally moving away from Google, but one of the oddest things about the legacy free G Suite changes is that after months and months of upheaval and uncertainty, they just allowed personal-use users to keep it indefinitely anyway.

I half wonder if it was a purposeful scheme to knock out the biggest users and have them "voluntarily" migrate while ultimately not booting off those who waited around and were the most averse to change. But it really didn't feel like strategy, more like lurching between possible ways forward.

Google is definitely getting out of all those spaces where it just "generously" allowed free stuff all over the place: obviously the shuttering of many services, but the things like G Suite and Maps billing and the general crackdown on storage... I don't think the economics of the business really required such changes but it's more a philosophical change? Or preparing for leaner times ahead?

Ah crap so I’m going to be booted from gsuite in a year because I upgraded but won’t renew in a year while others will be fine? I barely use it too. Didn’t want to deal with moving the domain email yet.

They eventually gave just a "tell us you're doing personal use and we'll move you to a new free plan" option. That's what I ended up doing: I figured at least I'd wait until the end of their period to do anything.

I don't remember if they offered an option to go back if you'd already upgraded, though.

But yeah, this is the basic kind of weird and unfortunate scenario their muddled messaging led to.

I’m sure I won’t be able to go back. This sucks. Are you sure the free plan includes email? I’ll check again

Edit: seems like the free plan doesn’t include email? That sucks still but yea nothing else I could do then. I need the super low volume email

It definitely includes email.

It seems like maybe you can go back even if you affirmatively upgraded? Haven't tried obviously but the Google page about it seems to indicate as much.

https://support.google.com/a/answer/2855120?hl=en

"Google does not care about their users". Well.. I am not sure about that

Google cares about its customers, not its users. Google users and Google customers are two different entities.

but there is always the option of not using Google products, or using as few as possible Google products.

A New York Times columnist tried this maybe a year or two ago. With the help of an expert, tried to go completely Google-free, meaning no access to any Google API. It turned out to be impossible, since so many apps, programs, and services rely on Google behind the scenes for everything from flight data to CAPTCHA.

> Google users and Google customers are two different entities.

Google hardly cares about their customers as well, unless you are big enough to make a dent in their income, which you are not. The number of people paying for gsuite who never managed to get a hold of an actual human after a brutal and unwarranted termination of their online life is quite big, if you expect them to care about their customers.

I pay Google for phones, home devices, a YouTube subscription, extra cloud storage... if you are made uncomfortable by the deal of getting an amazing suite of products without paying for any of it then perhaps you can quell your unease by becoming a paying customer.

Even if you are too frugal to part with any of your cash, your statement, besides being worn and trite, is plainly false. Without users (even the free tier), Google goes out of business, which is decidedly an anti goal.

You are gleefully ignoring the nearly weekly posts here about people getting locked out of all their Google services for terms of service violations that make no sense. Google has no support mechanisms.

My personal experience with an anti-spam service that got bought by Google and was cancelled was awful, as the "replacement" service was missing features that the one I was paying for originally had. More recently I tried for months to report a widespread Google Maps software issue to no avail where Streetview data was inaccessible. I had to resort to getting someone that works at Google to report the issue internally after which is was fixed within a few weeks.

It really is true that Google treats their users like garbage. The pretty much follows when users are merely an expense to be minimized in the quest to sell more ads.

Out of interest what did you replace G Suite with? All the paid options I've looked at cost more and/or have shockingly poor spam protection.

I've replaced it with purelymail.com (not affiliated) - and I'm happy with that. Been with the service for about 4 months now. Yes, there is occasional spam, but fine with that.

They offer calendar as well, works fine but I am not using it. Running my own self-hosted instance of NextCloud and using that for cal and contacts.

I do not use any online/web office suite.

I've been using Office 365 Business Standard. Works quite well, works with all my devices (Windows natively, web with a very good web interface and iOS with the Outlook app and with Exchange syncing). Works nicely with a standard Microsoft account and can switch between them depending on what I need (e.g. Xbox/Rewards on personal account). Had to migrate stuff manually (using Google Takeout) to a 'normal' Google account which was pain - especially as they let you go from personal to Gsuite in one click - but once it's done it's done - thankfully Office 365 keeps the subscription & standard Microsoft account separate. Lost a YouTube account in the transfer but had to suck it up.

Can get a subscription for around £90 a year, usually with cashback through various retailers via the likes of Topcashback/Quidco (renewed last time with the BT online store and got cashback through TCB).

Spam filtering is second to none, nothing seems to get through it and doesn't have many false-positives either.

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